"Kim Newman - The Serial Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

Mama-Lou slapped her shoulders, breasts, hips, and thighs with gestures Richard had seen performed by
warlocks, witches, and morris-dancers. She added certain herbs to the fire, filling the studio with a rich,
pungent, not-unpleasant musk. Mama-Lou shook herself into a trance, channelling her patron, Erzulie Freda.
She invoked others of her island pantheon, reciting the "Litanie des Saints." Damballah Wedo, Lord Shango,
Papa Legba.
And Baron Samedi. The Saturday Man.
When the barbeque was fully alight, Richard laid the producer's hat into the bed of flames.
They watched until everything was burned down to ashes.
Then they filled the urn.
Richard fastened the lid.
"Now, the seal of Erzulie Freda," announced Mama-Lou. She surprised June O'Dell with a deep,
open-mouthed kiss and then applied herself to Richard with nips and an agile tongue. The Wardrobe Mistress'
personal loa was the Haitian goddess of love and sensuality. He would have to admit he knew how
ceremonies performed under the patronage of Erzulie Freda were traditionally concluded.
Mama-Lou pulled him and June toward Mavis Barstow's enormous Fresian cowhide three-piece suite, elbows
crooked around their necks, lips active against their faces. She had a lot of strength in her arms. This
development came as something of a shock to June, but Mama-Lou whispered something to her in French
which made reservations evaporate. The actress became as light on her feet as she was on her
platform-skates and slipped busy fingers inside Richard's shirt.
He remembered the star's hunger and the consequences for unwary ghosts. He must be careful not to let her
leech away too much of him. She had used up the best part of her husband, literally. But Mama-Lou was
strong too, with a different kind of hunger, a different kind of need.
Two bodies, one very pale, one very black, wound around him and each other. And two spirits, burning inside
the bodies, pulled at him.
When he told Barbara about the evening, he would tactfully omit this next stage of the ritual.
He checked the cameras with quick glances. They were hooded. The red recording lights were off.
Which was a mercy.
June and Mama-Lou impatiently helped him off with his trousers. Richard thought of England, then
remembered he wasn't actually English.
┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖
XIV
Vanessa, of course, saw what had happened in an instant and held it over him all week, exacting numerous
favours. She obviously told Fred, and he went around looking at his "guv'nor" with envious awe. Richard was
not entirely comfortable with his own behaviour and took care to be exceptionally solicitous to Barbara,
whichтАФlater on the night in questionтАФinvolved a fairly heroic effort in their shared bedroom. He put his evident
success down to the lingering effect of Mama-Lou's voodoo herbs rather than the strength of his own amative
constitution. Now he was glad, not only that he had not been found out by the professor, but that a night
spent with her had followed his hour or so under the spell of Erzulie Freda.
Being open to the feelings of others often led him into choppy waters and he was not about to excuse himself
on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He accepted the less admirable, very male, elements of his
makeup and determined to rein them in more effectively. The Swinging Sixties were over, and this ought to be
the Sensible (or at least, the Sober) Seventies. Besides, he could self-diagnose the symptoms and knew he
was falling in love with Barbara Corri.
It was his gift to know how other people felt. All the time. Without fail. But with one exception. He could tell
when a woman was attracted to him. He could tell when she was infuriated with him and performing a
supernatural feat by concealing it from the world. But he could not tell if a woman he loved even liked him. If
Barbara were in love with him, she'd have to come straight out and say so. Even then, he was no more able
to tell if she meant it than anyone else in the world could. It struck him that this blind spot was probably the
one thing, along with his unique upbringing under the aegis of the Diogenes Club, that prevented him from
becoming a monster.